


you were the house i wanted to grow up in

by Jazyrha



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:54:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21839308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jazyrha/pseuds/Jazyrha
Summary: He knows, if he retreats now, he will never win his father's love. He also knows this: some victories are not worth the cost. | a character study of Soren, regarding his family and his identity
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	you were the house i wanted to grow up in

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Triss_Hawkeye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Triss_Hawkeye/gifts).



“Don’t make me choose!” Claudia sobs and Soren knows -- they have always been differen, he and his sister, but this difference, this distance will break them.

For him, there is no choice at all. 

. . .

In the fading light of the sunset, Soren lets the fire die. He shivers slightly as the wind picks up, but doesn’t add wood to the fire. It flickers faintly in the red of the night and Soren lets it. The cold iss a reminder and so is the shivering. He can still feel. (He can still suffer.)

His fingers curl and uncurl around the hilt of his sword, relearning. Unlearning. The fire dies slowly, and so does the light.

Claudia doesn’t ask him if he was going to do it, and he doesn't ask her what she used for her spell.

(He doesn’t ask her why she didn’t just leave him, why she didn’t listen. He already knows the answer.)

. . .

Soren was never very smart. He was only seven, but he knew that much. He wasn't like his father, or like his sister. He could never take a broken thing and fix it, he could never take a dead thing and give it power. 

When Soren was only a child he learned that family was not forever. He learned that you were never a part of something endless, that everything you build on could be brought down.

He didn't cry for his mother. No tears for the enemy, the training instructor had said. Never show weakness. If she didn't need him, he wouldn't need her. If she didn't love him, he wouldn't love her.

He didn't cry for his mother. He only watched her retreat into the morning light, holding Claudia's hand like a promise. He would not lose this battle again.

. . .

His mother wants to leave, but Soren knows. If he retreats now, he will lose this battle. If he gives up now, he will never win his father's love. He doesn't understand why his mother would give up on them, but he understands enemies

(Claudia would stay with father, he knows too. Claudia is everything their father wanted in a child. They will stay together, and so Soren will stay with them.)

. . .

Soren spends his days rebuilding. Relearning. Unlearning. He is teaching his hands to fit around the shapes of peace, he is teaching his hands to make something. He was never good at making anything, not like Claudia was. He could never take a dead thing and give it meaning. (He thought he could never take a living thing and void it of meaning.)

He spends his days cleaning debris. He spends his days ducking his head so he can pretend he hasn't noticed the glares. 

The townspeople don't talk to them. Soren and Claudia are ghosts, apparitions among the living. They're afraid, Soren knows. Afraid of Soren, unleashing fire and destruction. Afraid of Soren, with his Crownsguard uniform and the power that comes with it. Afraid of Claudia and her glowing eyes, afraid of all the power coursing through her veins.

It would be better to leave. It would be better to go and act like it never happened, like Soren used to. He shed no tears for his mother when she left. He shed no tears whenever his father would pick Claudia up and talk about magic, leaving him to play outside alone.

It's just --

There is a murmur in his heart, a whisper still lingering from his nightmares of a life unmoving, uncured, that if he walks away now, he will walk a path of destruction. 

. . .

Father does not take failure well. Claudia doesn’t know this, because Claudia has never failed in his eyes. But Soren -- Soren knows the taste of defeat, the burning of shame. That has always been the distance between them, the distance between the prodigy and the failure, that distance they so desperately tried to erase with their games and their pet names and 

. . .

His father didn't come to practice often. It was a waste of time to him. There was no glory to be found in swinging around a metal object, in being restrained by gravity, in the gory reality of blood spilled. So limited.

But he'd come to practice that day. It was hot, blistering hot, and everyone had been slacking off. Practice had mostly consisted of simply enduring. Soren was good at that,  _ enduring _ , just being, in the heavy plate and armor. If he moved the wrong way, the sun gleamed on the golden insignia of a crown guard in training.

His father was here because yesterday the sergeant had dropped the most precious word in the world.  _ Potential _ . Yesterday the instructor had smiled at his father, still holding the large book that Claudia and he had been reading in for days now, and had said that Soren had  _ potential _ .

Today his father had come to look. Soren didn’t look for him. (Do not show weakness.) He held his eyes forward, his sword high. He imagined his sword could draw runes in the air, that he too could do the magic that was so precious, so important. That he too could have potential, could have value, could find something he was good at.

When he finally looked at his father, Viren looked at him like he was a creature full of magic. Calculated.

. . .

“And above all else: I swear loyalty to the true king.” 

The words thunder in the air, carrying over the field. King Harrow placed the insignia of crown’s guard on Soren’s armor, but Soren was looking past him, to his father.

Viren had his head tilted ever so slightly, the way he did when he was presented with a particularly interesting magic creature or spell. For the first time in Soren’s life, his father looked at him a new, like he too, could have some value.

. . .

Soren doesn’t say anything when his father takes away Callum’s voice. Callum doesn’t understand, he’s just a child, playing a child’s game. Callum doesn’t understand what will happen tonight. He’s pampered and  _ weak.  _ King Harrow has always been so soft on him and Soren knows this is the result: a weak child crying out at a time of great danger.

So his father stopping that is just his duty. That’s just honor. Tonight, many will fall. Many will lose their lives. Soren knows this. He’s only nineteen, but he knows of death and loss, and Callum knows nothing.

(Callum will always be weak because of his father and Soren will always be strong because of his.)

. . .

They’re only children when they realize the truth: that Claudia is valuable and that Soren is not. It doesn’t come to either of them as a shock or an epiphany, it’s more like being more aware of your own heartbeat or your own breath. It’s always been true, but now you know.

Claudia pick the wings of butterflies and giggles. When Soren cries, his father pats his head and tells him there’s nothing to cry about. (Tells him not to be so weak.) Claudia is smart, she’s been reading books as soon as she could. 

But yesterday when Soren couldn’t sit at the table because he messed up during training, Claudia took her plate and sat by his side, and when Claudia cries at night because she misses mom, he will sit at the foot of her bed, and he thinks that means family.

He thinks that means love.

. . .

( _ I could be a poet _ , Soren says and Claudia’s eyes widen in horror.  _ I would never have to hurt anyone ever again _ , Soren says, and Claudia screams. 

They laugh about it later. What is Soren if he isn’t a warrior? What is Soren if you take away the one thing that made him useful?)

. . .

For Claudia, the world has always been infinite. Gravity has no hold on her. As long as she has her magic, she is invincible. She is all powerful and the only limit that has ever been placed upon her is herself.

For Soren, the world has always been finite. He has always felt the weight of gravity, pressing down on him in his armor. He has always had to obey the commands of his beating heart, th

(Father would call it weakness. Father would scoff at men who balk 

. . .

Ezran forgives them. Soren knows, this is the kind of choice his father would think makes Ezran weak. Sparing them only gives them a chance to go on. No mercy for traitors. No mercy for the enemy.

His father would scoff. His father would say this means Ezran has no respect for his father, to so blatantly go against the order that been established. You don’t betray your own family, you don’t admit to their mistakes. Family is sacred, family is everything.

Soren looks at Ezran and thinks maybe there is no love stronger than this one, the love to make someone’s mistakes your responsibility, and set out to correct them.

When they lead him away, the sun gleams on the crown guard insignia, and for the first time since the village burned down, Soren is proud to wear it. 


End file.
